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Jon's Swaziland Diary (Click HERE for the most recent entry) What a month, so much has happened I don't know where to start! I'll just give you the highlights:
Well that's about it for January and some of February - we thank God for so many of you who have been supporting us, without it we could not manage, with it you are literally helping us to save lives! Also any money you give for the school project will go 100% to the children's education. We thank you all very much and praise God for the encouragement you are to all of us here. Since we opened the school on the 5th Feb this half term has flown by! We were unable to start school officially because the desks were not finished in time - so we just had a week of team building and teacher-pupil 'getting to know you'í time. It was all great fun.
The list seems endless and I don't want to bore you but I can safely say it is nothing like I thought it would be. There are triumphs and failures, tears and laughter, heart aches but always joy when you see these children who, through huge adversity, set-back and pain always come up with a smile on their face. I thank God for the privilege of knowing them and being called friend. I thank God for everyone who has and is supporting us - from the child in an English Primary School giving pocket money to the business executive. Your support to us keeps Swazi's in work and pupils at desks. God Bless Jon I can't believe how time has flown by; it's already June and we will be home in about 6 weeks - we have spent almost a year here! Life continues to pose it's challenges with the heart breaks and the joys. We have had the great pleasure of hosting
a team of volunteers from the USA during the Schools Easter Holiday
break - led by
the band Universal Royalty - we travelled to different places
of Swaziland doing youth events and giving out toys and clothes
that the team had brought; they also built an adventure playground
for our school. One such story of forgiveness in
our school that is worthy of reporting here and marks for me
the reason why I work on, at
times in the face of such hardship and pain: She was walking towards her dad in a very green pasture, he was looking at her and smiling as she walked towards him. The school counsellor asked her how she felt in the dream, she replied with- 'nervous and happy mixed together' and went on with -' I hope and pray that my dream was seeing my dad in heaven and that he was there because he had asked God to forgive him for what he had done to me, because I do, and I know I am going to heaven when I die.'!!!!! What can you say to that, here is a child left with AID's because her father abused her and she of her own will is choosing to forgive him! All I can say is praise God! - it certainly puts to nothing the hurt I've had in my life and challenges me to keep forgiving those who offend me! Why am I here and why do you
all help keep us here with your finances? For such a child as
this! She and many more like her
make this work so worthwhile. Thank you all for every bit of
support you provide - your love, your prayers and yes your
money; without your financial input we could not remain here doing
what
we are doing. Before we left Bulembu, the winter began to really
bite, with temperatures falling to just below zero on some nights.
Children
in the village huts were freezing. We through the church that
I help lead out here have been able to purchase blankets and
provide hot nutritious soup 2 days a week, plus through our
school we are providing extra warm clothing to the children that
come
with no jumpers and coats. God bless you all. Well I can’t believe that a year has gone by and we’ve been back in the UK for 5 weeks; the time has flown by – we travel back to Swaziland next week! It has been so good to catch up with friends and family; the times we have had with people has refreshed and blessed us. Swaziland has captured our hearts, the children, the need, and the local people. We feel the Lord would have us extend our time beyond a year in this special country. The Valley of Hope Mission School that we have set up is going really well; since it opened in February it has grown from 35 pupils to 75 orphaned and vulnerable children, as more homes are opened up in Bulembu. Sadly, one of our pupils died of an Aid’s related illness in June. She was abandoned in a hospital for 5 months, severely malnourished and depressed; her life with us, although brief, ended for her in happiness and knowing Jesus as her Saviour. The smile that came back over time is a memory that I cherish. (See video Skinner’s in Bulembu - the first year, for a beautiful photograph of her). Our third term starts on 10th September with another 15 children entering the school (see the videos of Term 1 and Term 2) - at the end of the year we will have to renovate and open up more classrooms. We need more teachers to help us in our ever expanding school and have made some very promising contacts whilst here of qualified teachers who may come out. The Aid's epidemic is getting worse. Many Swazi people are fearful and refuse to get tested for the HIV virus, so the official figure of 43% of people who are HIV+ is probably a lot higher. UN statistics show Swaziland as having the highest rate of HIV+ people in the world. The Aid's problem in Swaziland is further deepened by a lack of education and understanding of how it is transmitted - a widespread and extremely devastating message spread by the local Witch Doctors to males who are HIV+ is that if they sleep with a virgin they will get rid of their Aid's; this is resulting in the sickening reality that children of younger and younger ages are being sexually abused. We are helping to care for, protect and educate these vulnerable children - we try and reach them before they fall prey to this from of abuse. We sadly don't get to all of them in time. Adding to this tragedy Swaziland is now facing a major drought with 40% of its population (400,000 people) facing severe food shortages - the UN has made an appeal for $15.6 million for food relief to avert a full-blown humanitarian crisis; this impact’s on those taking ARV's as this drug is discontinued in the absence of food. Inevitably it is the orphaned and vulnerable children that end up suffering the most. As a direct result of this drought and very high winds in the week before our return we fought a number of major forest fires (see The Bulembu Fire video). One night we had to evacuate half the town and two orphanages whilst we fought fires that threatened to engulf our homes. Offices were partly damaged along with two electrical sub-stations that blew up; thankfully no home was destroyed and nobody died. Our closest town – Piggs Peak – did not fare so well with many homes destroyed and regionally 25 people lost their lives. The government has subsequently declared the fires a national disaster as thousands of kilometres of forestry and grazing land have been destroyed. What is to become of this lovely little country! The agency we have worked with this past year is called Bulembu Ministries Swaziland (BMS). BMS are working hard with the government and other agencies to provide employment in Bulembu and set up orphan care programmes; their vision over the next few years is to eventually provide homes for 2000 orphaned and vulnerable children. Please check out the BMS website www.bulembu.org this site (and others on our links page) will give a good overview of our work. Here you can catch the BMS vision and may be even become a partner in the work! We want to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all our prayer and financial supporters - it has been amazing over this last year the protection and amount of finance we have received - the Lord has really looked after us and used you all in this process. We have booked our return tickets to Swaziland for the 7th September and as we return we do so with anticipation as to our future work. We are now taking a step of faith regarding our finances; we understand that many people undertook to support us for just one year - thank you, we bless you for your past support and release you from any further obligation. However, if you would like to continue to support us in prayer and/or financially please let us know. Paul Hughes will continue to be our link in the UK. If you require a giving form you can download one from the swazimission website or make donations through Paypal. The Lord bless you and keep you; thanks again for your love and support, Jon. Half way through term 3! Well I can hardly believe it we only have 6 more weeks to go and our first year has finished! At the beginning of this term we had a mini inspection from ACE headquarters in Durban. Their report back was - 'we can't believe this is an ACE School only in its first year!' - They clarified this by saying that the number we had on role and the way the school was operating would normally from scratch take a school 2-3 years to obtain the standards and practices we had in operation. Phew - thank you to all my staff and BMS, however we could not have done this without God's help too. We have been accepting in a number of different pupils this term with a range of background: Child 1 Child 2 Child 3 Despite the heart breaking backgrounds of these children, it is so rewarding to see them all begin to live and be children and play and start to enjoy life - those of you supporting us, keep us here, helping ones such as this! Thank you. I have been working on trying to get birth certificates for all the children and the other day the Birth, Deaths and Marriages Department turned up at the school with a team of UNICEF officers and spent the whole day registering all the children. However, they wanted me to co-sign all the certificates which I did dutifully (after they produced the documentation for me to get an ID card and number which is almost impossible for a temporary non-African resident to get, so I could sign the certificates), on finishing I asked what my signature on the birth certificates meant - they responded with 'it means you are the guardian!' Life here is bizarre! We had a miracle escape the other day - got caught up in the biggest storm I have ever been in. Whilst driving back on the mountain roads to Bulembu, the heavens opened - the van (which we had sold!) was hit by lightening, as it was all around us, and which arced between us and a power line we were driving next to - sparks flying everywhere. Then a tree was struck and fell alongside the road just missing us; hailstones the size of golf balls (and I'm not kidding they were as big and as hard as golf balls) pounded the front of the car chipping off the paint work; because of the fires there is now no foliage/grass cover on the soil, so the rain poured in torrents off the sides of the mountains bringing with it rivers of mud flowing at different places across the dirt track, one of which I had no option but to drive through only to find the van being dragged sideways as I was travelling forwards! We arrived home safe and in one piece - with remarkable little damage to the van - except the lack of paint at the front! We have entered the rainy season now - which is much needed in this drought stricken country - but being in the mountains we sometimes go a whole week without any sunshine. This also causes the phones to fail, email to go and regular power failures. Ah well such is life! Well it's 3.00am here now so I'll finish and go to bed! God Bless you all. This last year has flown by – and I’ve realised how behind I am in keeping my blog up to date. We completed our first academic year starting with 35 children and finishing with 87! Quite a good growth rate, however, this brings a great deal of challenge to running a school when your numbers are continually rising. Planning for everything from academic material to teaching staff, renovating classrooms to buying uniform, is challenging and keeps you on your toes. But praise God the finance has been coming in and we’ve been able to care for an increasing number of orphaned children. When we re-open we will be getting an increasing number of children from our immediate local communities, who come from single parent or older sister led homes. Most of these homes have no running water or electricity – they are in dire need of renovation. The children have very little clothing and rely on us to provide their main meal of the day, so we will be starting to feed children at school this year. We have just finished training 11 staff with a group of ACE trainers from South Africa. It was a week’s course that was brain stretching and challenging. We were due to re-open on Jan 22nd but have had to delay as renovation works have taken longer than expected. We now have 8 classes with a teacher and assistant in each class, plus a secretary, ESL teacher and siSwati teacher (who unfortunately is off sick long term – I am currently trying to find a temporary replacement) – plus me! This has been a challenging year – stretching my teaching and leadership skills to the max; draining me emotionally – but hugely rewarding as you see children literally snatched at times from certain death/abuse who come alive in a school that you run! Your love, prayers and financial support have kept us here and have helped to make it all possible! When we reopen on the 29th Jan, we will be having a memorial service for one of our students who died on Christmas day. She was part of the ABC Ministry – 11 years old – her fight for survival ended in a government hospital where she died of renal and heart failure – she needed Kidney dialysis but there was no machine in Swaziland. However, through the profession of her own mouth she confessed Jesus as Lord and Saviour so we don’t mourn as those with no hope, but hold fast to the truth that she is ‘with the Lord, which is far better.’ We will now be experiencing regular power cuts – starting with 4 hours a day at peak times. Swaziland buys all its power from SA, whose demand for power is more than they produce. So we will become part of SA’s power sharing scheme – this means that one area gets it whilst another does without. This is only the start and will get worse – what will become of the world cup here in 2 years who knows! We had a quite Christmas – I just could not get used to cutting the Christmas tree in shorts and t-shirt in a sweltering 40 degrees with ‘I’m dreaming of a white Christmas’ playing in the background. We missed our eldest son and daughter – Mike in Bradford and Vic in the States. However, we are all looking forward to the big family event of the year – Vic and Juan’s marriage. Changes – Jude and I will be returning to Swaziland by ourselves – Charlotte, Sian and Rachel will be staying in the UK to restart their respective lives, getting jobs and continuing with education. We will miss them and they will leave empty holes that will be hard to fill in the work of the community and hearts of the children out here. They have served long and well. God bless and keep you all – I look forward to seeing many on our brief return in March. Jon. I’m sitting in Jo’burg airport, its 1.00pm, I’ve been here for 3.00hrs and I’ve got 9hrs to go!!!! Had an interesting chat with a SA director of a metal company who has asked me to contact him after his business trip, with the possibility of his company donating some funds to help run the school – a chance connection? Perhaps not – God may have a plan here! A week tomorrow I walk my first daughter up the isle - 1 down, 3 to go! I’m really looking forward to it; life has been quite hectic and stressful these last few weeks, but now I’m sitting here in the airport and can’t do anything more for the children or in the school – so relax... and write a blog! I just walked off with another chaps case, the guy who I was talking with walked off for his flight and left this case where he was sitting – I asked around to find whose it was nobody knew – I thought it was his picked it up and walked off with it to find him. Meanwhile this guy chased after me saying it was his! It has been full on this term, new children being brought into the school, teaching them our school system, settling last year’s pupils back in, starting our first assembly with a memorial service for the girl who died Christmas day. One of our staff members became ill last year and over the last few weeks has deteriorated rapidly. I visited her in the government hospital just before I left – very depressing – so many dieing of AIDs. She has got TB and can’t start ARV’s until the TB is under control, she will die of TB! As a result of her TB, her son and nephew have contracted it and now all the susceptible children in the school may have contracted it. I had to put another teacher on sick leave with suspected TB in an effort to protect the children in her class. Out of our 120 children we now feed 30/day – breakfast, snack and a hot lunch. These ones come from the surrounding community and mountain village and are malnourished, so in an effort to keep them healthy we decided to start a feeding program from the school. Another cost in our ever increasing overheads – if anyone reads this and would like to fund this feeding programme, it costs us about R3.00/day/child which us about 25p! Doing the maths, that’s – R90/day, R450/week, R1800/mnth which is about £120 or $240US approximately. This year we start our biggest project – raising R1.2m (£90,000 or $180,000US) to renovate the town school – this will cater for upto 400 children – we want this to be ready for moving into by end of this year. Anybody out there willing to fund this?!!! God Knows and he has the people or person to do it – we trust Him. When Jude and I get back from the UK it will be a new era for us – having had all our children ‘flown the nest’. They will be continuing with their education and getting jobs – girls I will miss you so much. Well I have another traveller to talk to now so I’ll sign off. God bless you all, Jon. PS What a great 3.00hrs I had talking to Aaron – God Bless I am truly amazed at how time flies and where does it go!!! Since the last blog in Feb so much has happened; here are the highlights... The Wedding! – what a fantastic day and I was such a proud father of the bride! Victoria was stunning and the whole day was amazing – 170 guests all fed and entertained by the kind generosity and help of many people in Ilfracombe – thank you all. It was good to catch up with so many friends and family members. Jude travelled straight back to Swaziland and I stayed an extra week and spent a few days with my son Mike – a great time; I’m so proud of him. Another daughter to marry! – I am happy to announce to the world that, Rachel my youngest daughter at the tender age of 18 will marry Corey Wagner, a young Canadian missionary on the 9th of August this year. The marriage will take place in the UK, after which Corey and Rachel will return as husband and wife to carry on serving God on the mission field here in Swaziland. Car Stolen in Durban and donation of lost goods! – I attended a teacher’s conference in Durban a few days after flying back to Swaziland with Jude. We planned to spend a few days relaxing after the conference; so the day after it finished we sat in the 5 star Beverly Hills Hotel (we didn’t stay there!) having coffee and enjoying the free internet connection (reason for being there!). On finishing went out to our car (recent new purchase) only to find it was not there! We had become another statistic of car crime that is so common now in South Africa that the police almost don’t care. Thankfully we were not there when it happened as when these criminals take the car they do it by force using a gun if necessary – many people are killed trying to prevent it. The car was not insured as we could not afford the high rate of car insurance – seems stupid now, but you can only pay for what you have when you are a missionary and don’t earn anything! In the back of the car was my purchase of almost £1000’s of educational curriculum for the school – gone! The company I bought it from (ACE) kindly re-donated the entire purchase back to me! Thank you Lord! A real answer to prayer as it would have meant no work for the entire school which has rapidly grown. (Thankfully we still had our passports and my wallet to; we hired a car and went straight back to Swaziland). School pupil numbers hit 130! – the orphan care programme is steadily growing bringing in children who have lost many family members to AID’s, many double orphans, who have then fallen prey, in their vulnerable state, to severe sexual and physical abuse. One 9 year old girl having been repeatedly abused by her father ran away only to be chased down, caught and abused again! At least she is now safe, in a loving home and school; receiving the love and care we can provide, we try and bring healing and restoration to her little life – she is now HIV positive. As the town grows with the expansion of new business developments, more people are coming in from around Swaziland to find work. We are trying to provide places in the school for workers children as well. These children now represent to us the ones that are worst off in relation to care. All coming from single parent homes or in some cases homes run by an older sister, we are now feeding breakfast, snack break and lunch to 35 children on a daily basis; also clothing them; I am now paying homes visits to check on living conditions; we are starting a regular health check programme to pick up on skin infections, nutritional defects HIV status and abuse. Some children are locked in rooms all night with younger siblings while mum goes out ‘on the town’; or left at home for a whole weekend while mum returns to the family homestead. A 6 year old being left with 2 younger siblings who they then look after is common. I am trying to stamp out this practice by paying regular visits. We have started to check children’s bodies, as many get such severe beatings that scar marks are left on their backs. I have given verbal warnings to these parents that if I pick up any new signs of severe beatings I will inform social welfare (of which we do have one in our educational region, which is the size of Devon) and try to have the child removed and placed in to one of our care homes. Just recently I was successful in removing a 13 year old girl who was in a vulnerable situation and being preyed upon by older men and had her placed into one of our care homes. The sad reality though is that for every one that we can save like this there are 100 more that are left! Two more deaths at our school – sadly as the aids pandemic spreads, we lost our siSwati and ESL teacher, she passed away in March. Then a few weeks ago a 7 year old boy in our lower school fell ill, his mother refused to let us test him, we could not get him onto ARV’s and try to stabilise his condition; we eventually admitted him to hospital but it was too late – he died; we trust that in the short time he was in our school he came to know Jesus and is now in a better place. The mother (who is HIV positive) could not afford to pay hospital, mortuary or burial fees. We measured his body, ordered the coffin, paid the hospital fees, carried his body in the back of our car to his homestead that was so poor that they could not afford a funeral service, so as the school Principal and Pastor I took the service and buried him for them. The day we placed his body in the coffin, another 7 year old from a nearby homestead, had just died that Jude had been caring for, so we actually got two child coffins and laid two little boys physically in to them! I never in my wildest dreams thought that I’d ever do anything like that! But this is the reality of living in Africa. As sad at times as this all is, we through your support and the grace of God, carry on touching just a few lives and do actually make a difference to a handful of children providing them with love and a chance of life. Jon This school term has been the most tiring few weeks so far of my time here in Swaziland. I have been under personal attack by some Swazi men who have been saying bad things about the school and me – trying to disgrace the God I serve and the standard of godliness in the school. They have used Witch doctors who have tried to lay curses on me - I say try, because for a born again child of God no ‘curse’ can stick or have effect! However, it does place you under attack and oppression – God is good though and has strengthened us. In Psalm 9 I found great strength – I prayed that God would indeed see how I was being ‘persecuted’ and lift me up (v13); also that the one who was trying to ‘ensnare’ me would himself be ‘ensnared’ (v15,16). The man in question, that day, went off sick and was found in the afternoon screaming, saying that someone was trying to drive hot pokers into his hands, he was vomiting and in a lot of distress! Later that week he left the town! You can’t mess with God’s children – we lift Jesus up in our school and ministry and stand firmly on God’s word, the Bible. In the school, children are coming to Christ and receiving him as Lord and Saviour – 17 this past few weeks – and on their desks is God’s word, the bible, which they read and learn. Lives are being changed and children are being emotionally healed from sexual and physical abuse. This is God’s work through the Holy Spirit and the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ – the enemy, Satan, cannot win or prevail! I unashamedly profess Christ as Lord and King of all and submit myself and the school he has called me to run under his authority and power! So a tough but rewarding time – when you come to Africa you are more aware of the battle that exists between God’s Kingdom and that of the kingdom of Satan – good and evil face up in a very real way because the people here believe very much in good and the demonic. Sadly we still see the passing of children and young adults to hiv. Only a few weeks ago an 11 year old from one of our homes died; I had the privilege of praying for her – one time whilst she was in great pain she stretched out her hands to me asking for Jesus, I prayed for her and she received him and immediately fell peacefully asleep. I do look for the day when these little ones are healed – she is, and is now in a far better place! I was able to comfort one of my teachers whose 21 year old died in the early hours of the morning; all I could do was pray. Again I pray and look for the day when these young people are raised from the dead – I have never in my life before been faced with so much pain, despair and death – but my God reigns in every situation, despite the circumstances. We have a young 13-year-old boy who came to us wasting away. He was tested for the hiv virus but was negative; eventually we found he had a tumor in the brain on his pituitary. Through a sequence of miracles we got him to a top neurosurgeon in South Africa where he successfully under went a 14-hour brain operation – the tumor was removed. We are now facing a huge hospital bill – so if anyone reads this please donate some money to help pay for the hospital costs – this will be on going as he will need hormone replacement therapy. If you would like to help, contact me via my email address and I can arrange the transfer of monies into an account to help cover the costs. We are half way towards completing a big renovation project – a 400-pupil school in the village. We are on target to opening by January 2009; this will allow us to take in more children to our orphan care programme. Money miraculously is coming in from all over the world – one contact I got, for example, was with a computer company in the US who will be donating all the funds necessary for running 20 networked computers with a digital projector in one of our classrooms! Thank you! When I get back I will be employing 6 more staff in preparation to opening – so any teachers out there who are looking to serve God and like a challenge in life come out and join the team! Well this week I have the joy of giving away another daughter (Rachel – my youngest!) to a young man who we have all come to love – Corey, working as a missionary in Bulembu. Thankfully we have the pleasure of living close by now to at least one married daughter, as they will be coming back to Swaziland with us. Thank you all for spending the time in reading this blog and keeping in touch with what we are doing; please continue to pray for us, come out and visit – who knows you may stay! And if you feel inspired please helpus financially as well – every little counts!God bless you all, Jon. I have to sadly report the passing of our 13 year brain surgery boy – he was just not strong enough to make a recovery; he died in hospital. We re-opened the school on the 25thAugust and held a special service to celebrate his life. Many of the children took part reading prayers, poems or bible verses. The school choir sang beautifully – one visiting American asked how we talk to the children about death and how do they cope with it – death is a part of life out here, we face it head on and the children accept that a loved one gone from here is in a far better place as the bible tells us. The harder job here is when we do our sex education. In it we discuss the hiv/aids issue and have to deal with the children who are hiv positive and are on ARV’s. Through the discussions they have to face the reality of their condition and the certain death that it brings. Tough, but through God’s help we love these kids to a place of peaceful acceptance of their situation and provide them with the moral support they need. The wedding was great – despite the weather. Rachel looked stunning and Corey is a very fortunate man! He’s also a great son-in-law! Jude did a brilliant job in organizing it – I just turned up and did my bit. It all worked really well – the service in the tent was a wonderful setting – thank you all to those who came and helped. Rach and her new husband are here with us in Bulembu now – it’s really strange receiving emails from her as Rach Wagner and saying good night to her and leaving her in her house with her husband! Well life changes and you just have to move with the change! We had a quartet called ‘The Canadian Tenors’ visit Bulembu with a film crew making a documentary for a Canadian TV channel. The tenors are an emerging international group of singers who have performed in front presidents and the rich and famous; it seems they want to ‘adopt’ our cause as a charity they want to support! During one of their ‘shoots’ at the school I was watching as the director said: ‘Action’ and a few seconds later my cell phone went off!!! CUT he said and looked at me in disgust! I may be on the ‘out takes’ floor now! The school continues to grow and as we enter October our number on roll is nearly 150, with a complement of 30 staff (including support and admin staff)! The new school is fast approaching completion but as most developers will know it’s the ‘second fixings’ and ‘snagging’ work that takes the time and can produce the delays! I had a very successful meeting this last week with the Education minister’s Permanent Secretary – who is the real decision maker in government! We discussed the ACE curriculum and its revolutionary child driven and centered approach to education, compared to our traditional teacher led and child dependent upon teacher system. He seemed to indicate that he would recommend to the minister and his senior inspectors acceptance of this curriculum – praise God. He will probably come and inspect the school!!! Talking about inspections we just completed a 2 day ACE head office inspection – yes even out here you get inspected! An ACE school has to meet the international inspection criteria of schools so that a student that graduates from our Finally – Jude went off to Nelspruit, South Africa last weekend and someone did a smash and grab from the car taking off with her bag – camera, all credit cards, money, driving license, i.d and …..PASSPORT. So currently, as I write, she is still stuck in South Africa in Pretoria obtaining a new passport – I expect her home this weekend. God is good – all the time – this does not deter us from our vision or calling to establish Gods rule and reign here in Bulembu and in the lives of all these fantastic, beautiful children. He is our strength and shield. God Bless you all Jon |
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